


i'm just a problem that doesn't want to be solved

by SnorkleShit



Series: I thought of angels (choking on their halos) [7]
Category: RWBY
Genre: AU, Archester - Freeform, Canon Divergent, Faunus!Cardin, IT BEGINS, Multi, Pre-Archester, Self destruction, Slight Sexism, bc i am trash, bc team CRDL are still fuckbous, fight me, sexist slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 09:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3723376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnorkleShit/pseuds/SnorkleShit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The gang witnesses Cardin's self destructive meltdown ft. random as fuck Ozpin</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm just a problem that doesn't want to be solved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saph/gifts).



> but you admit that you’re lonely, you’re as cold as a statue  
> pleading ‘fuck me’ on the marble that was used to create you  
> i cant stand that you’re talking when you shouldn’t be living  
> i didn’t dodge all your bullets i just denied that they hit me  
> so when my body is bleeding i wont admit that this hurts  
> because admitting isn’t fixing so then what is it worth  
> so to say you’re unhappy is like saying you’re sorry  
> its nothing that i care to hear 
> 
> \- My Heart Goes Bum Bum Bum by Flatsound
> 
> playlist: http://8tracks.com/snorkletuckington/letting-people-down-is-my-thing-baby

He doesn't fucking talk to Dove anymore. Or the team in general, other than to boss them around. 

They used to talk. They used to joke around. He misses it. But that's fucking ruined now just like everything else. Not to mention they were only ever afraid of him and doing what he wanted the whole time. He knew it the whole time, but his stupid inner self tried to pretend it was something resembling friendship. What a stupid little dream he'd always wanted. He was supposed to control people through fear. That was how it worked. At least he was doing that right, still, even if it left a sour feeling in his gut. 

Those JNPR and RWBY punks had tried to talk to him throughout the week but he's done his best to drive them away, or avoid them. They were just trying to be all good people and reach out to try and help some broken lost soul. But they were wrong. He wasn't lost. He knew exactly what he had to do. He knew exactly who he needed to be. He just...had always had a hard time becoming that person completely, because he was weak. He couldn't be weak. Weak was everything he was afraid of. He needed to be strong, feared, in control. 

He sat at his desk working on some stupid essay as his thoughts spiraled, and the rest of CRDL was all minding their own business on the other side of the room, probably casting glances at him. Fuck them.

"So, uh, Cardin...Family Visitation Day is coming up. Should we decorate the dorm?" Lark asked, obviously attempting to sound casual.

Cardin froze. In all the distress, he'd forgotten. God, he hated the reminder that his so called family wouldn't be visiting. He didn't know if that was a bad or a good thing. Not like he wanted them to visit. He'd like it if they were going to be nice, if they would be proud of him, but that was a low probability. 

"Do whatever the fuck you want. You've got the families." Cardin replied without looking around.

"Are you sure your family won't stop by?" Thrush asked.

"Why the fuck would they? To come see their freak of son? Yeah, right. Don't fucking mock me or I'll break all your arms." Cardin hissed. He stood angrily and headed for the exit.

Lark sighed. "God, all you do is throw fits like some PMSing pre teen girl. Would you chill for a minute?" 

Cardin felt a surge of anger, and he rounded on Sky. "What the fuck did you just say to me?" 

Sky stood up, fists clenched. "We did everything you wanted! But you know what? Fuck that. Maybe we have to figure out how to be ourselves before we can be a team. We have to be good people before we can be good hunters!" He exclaimed.

Cardin laughed. "That's bullshit! Don't be so sentimental and girly, being a hunter is about killing monsters." 

"It's about killing monsters so we can protect people who can't protect themselves! But all you do is hurt people! If anyone's the monster, it's you! I'm done following you around, I'm done being afraid of you!" Sky shouted. 

Cardin felt pain and rage swell up in his blood.  
"You'll always be afraid of me! I'm the strongest!" He yelled back, seething.

"Now that's bullshit! You're all fucked up and lost and incomplete and you don't even know what you're doing! You're pathetic and weak! Weaker than the people you hurt, that's for sure! I'm not gonna hurt people who don't deserve it, but I have half a mind to try and hurt you!" Russel snarled, standing up angrily at last. 

Cardin felt like he was burning with fury and agony.  
"Do it! Do your best! Give it to me then, if you think you can!" Cardin snarled, picking his mace up from his nightstand. He wanted blood, wanted pain, wanted the adrenaline of battle. Wanted to break something and secretly wanted to be broken apart. He was so fucking pissed, the world was tinted red.

He stalked towards Russel, mace held high.

Russel's eyes widened, and he started backing up.  
"You wouldn't - you wouldn't hurt me. I'm your partner!" He exclaimed.

"Why shouldn't I? If I'm such a monster I should own up to it and hurt whoever I want!" Cardin seethed. 

Russel backed into the desk, staring up at Cardin with an expression he didn't care to understand. Sky and Dove stepped forward, weapons drawn. Before the tension broke into violence, Russel just shook his head.

"I believed in you." He told Cardin, voice full of regret, disgust, and...disappointment. 

Cardin froze, the fire of his rage is quenched with shock, like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on him. Nobody had ever believed in him. 

But Russel said that in past tense. As in he didn't anymore. 

Cardin stared down at himself, then at the others. He really was a monster, constantly attacking people who didn't deserve it, and he knew it. Why - why did he care so much? Why couldn’t he be one thing or the other, why always in between?

He spun around and stalked out of the dorm, in search of something to hurt and break that wouldn’t look at him with dissapointed eyes. That wouldn’t haunt him at night.

__________

The view from the clocktower was without equal. Ozpin sipped his coffee smoothly, despite the fact that it was almost 9:00 at night. Speaking of time…

He cocked his head and glanced down at the tablet in his hand. Interesting. It seemed like he had somewhere to be, the view would have to wait. 

________

“ _VICTORY OR DEATH_  
  
Nora screeched, slamming her trap card in front of Yang. 

“Wha- OH YOU LITTLE--” She exclaimed in despair. 

“Sounds like someone’s a little butthurt that they’re not the only tactical genius.” Jaune crooned from behind them. Ruby shot a glare at the boy- who wasn’t even playing- on her sister’s behalf. 

“Nobody says “butthurt,” Jaune. Don’t you agree, Ren?” Ruby asked, always trying to draw the quiet boy out of his shell during these double team get together’s. Ren didn’t even look up from the reference book he and Blake were both studying.

“Agreed.”

Jaune pouted, but whatever he went to say was cut off by Weiss despairing because she’d drawn the wrong card but mistaken it for what she wanted. Pyrrha patted him on the shoulder and offered him one of Nora’s candies from her stache. 

“It’ll be our turn to play the game soon, and then you’ll definitely win. Ren and Blake don’t even care about winning.”

“I reject that. I’m already five steps into my plan for domination.” Blake said in a monotone voice, ears twitching to reveal she was making a dry joke. Yang snickered from her place at the table. 

“That’s my girl!”

A knock on the door snapped everyone’s head up. Ruby stood, and skipped forward to open it. Then everyone went rigid.

“Uhhh...Hello, Professor Ozpin?” She said awkwardly. Ozpin nodded at all of them.

“A nice night, everyone. I just came by to personally remind everyone that it’s off limits to use the Sparring Arena without supervision.” He said smoothly.

Everyone glanced at each other.

“Theeeeeerrrreee’s something special in your coffee, isn’t there, Headmaster?” Yang said brazenly, leaning back in her chair. Nora snorted and Pyrrhha shot her an offended look that she would say something like that to the man who ran their prestigious academy.

Ozpin just chuckled lowly. “Unfortunately, I’m far less interesting than that, Mrs. Xiao Long. No, I just thought it would be an opportune time to remind you. And I’d appreciate it if you, as one of my best teams, took it upon yourselves to remind the leaders of the other teams. The leader of CRDL, for instance. It’s only not allowed because, without supervision, students are likely to injure themselves during practice. And without supervision, let alone other students nearby, it could spell for trouble. Have a nice night, everyone.” He said, sipping his coffee and heading down the hall and around the corner. 

They were all silent in confusion. 

“Uhhhh...that was a thing.” Ruby said slowly. 

Blake stood up, expression hard. “Do you think he’s implying that we go to the arena?”

“Didn’t he just tell us not to?”

“No, he was telling us that Cardin’s at the arena. Possibly hurt.”

“Ohhh, do you think if I broke his legs we could blame it on him getting injured in practice?”

“ _NORA!_

_________

Sparks flew as he slammed and slashed his mace against the practice dummy, made of a fake stone material. They weren’t supposed to be in the sparring arena so late at night, but he’d bullied the pass codes out of a higher student a long time ago. 

He slashed and smashed the dummies to rubble, and the arena automatically recalled the pieces back into the database and replaced them with new dummies every time he demanded. Cardin whirled and switched hands and he kicked off of one dummy to flip around and decapitate the one behind him, breathing hard. His vision was tinting darker and his scroll was beeping on its place at his hip, telling him his energy was low. Normally, this was the point a match would end. Luckily, he’d overrode that feature. He kept going, destroying everything in his path. The dummies popped up all around, moving back and forth, trying to to predict his movements. His strikes got sluggish, and his breathing got harder. But he didn’t care. All that mattered was letting go and holding himself together all at once. He was so angry _why was he always so fucking angry pissed enraged just so god damn angry_?

 

The real question was always _who was he angry at?_  
Cardin saw a dummy coming from the corner of his eye and raised his arm to block it with a well time aura shield - then he was sent hurtling into the other dummies and crashing to the ground. He groaned as pain raced from the back of his neck down his spine. He tried to push himself back up to hit the dummy that had bested him, but he fell back down with a curse. 

**“Game Set Match. Cardin Winchester : 34. Holographic Opponents: 3.”**  
An automated voice announced.

Cardin cursed, and pushed himself onto his knees. He reached back - his breastplate had been dented, fuck. He’d really misjudged his aura. Trust the armor his brother gave him to be less than up to par. He struggled to release the straps and ripped it off, and ripped off his arm guards as well. With a tentative hand he felt the back of his head- and it came back with blood on it. The world started to swim. He’d never had strong aura, and it had always pissed him off. People like Jaune had loads of raw energy and he was constantly lacking. 

_Weak._  
  
He felt another surge of anger, and spat the blood off his busted lip. 

“Single still target practice dummy, same level.” He called out. 

**“Cardin Winchester registers as injured, and ill prepared to continue. Advisable to contact nearest authority-”**  
The computer tried to tell him, which just pissed him off.  


"Deadlock override, authority: initiator. Give me the fucking target dummy!” He snarled at the stupid voice. 

**“Practice Match Commencing.”**

He forced himself to stand, and kicked his armor out of the way. He rolled his shoulders back, and grimaced at the sticky blood soaking his shirt between his shoulderblades. He ripped off his shirt, and tossed it to the side. Pain raged and shot like lightning through his limbs, but he didn’t care. Multiple reasons surfaced to justify this behavior.  
_It’ll make me stronger._

_I’m used to it._

_It’s not that big of a deal._

_My aura will rebuild and heal it for me._

_If I ask for help everyone will know i’m weak._

_I need to keep going I need to hurt something._

_I need to hurt something._

_I need to hurt myself._

**_I deserve it._ **  


Cardin ignored the warring opinions in his head and lashed out, smashing his bare fists into the statue, again and again. His knuckles bled so much they started to slip as he lost focus, and started to lose balance. He swung furiously again, and misjudged, sending himself crashing straight into the statue and to his knees again. He kicked out with a metal boot and cracked the statue’s leg, and it toppled backwards, shattering on the floor and then disappearing. 

He was left on the ground, bleeding and bruised and still so 

He started to punch the ground, over and over. He started to scream in frustration, at least, he told himself it was frustration and not agony as he practically spilt his already fractured knuckles over and over. The world swam and his vision started to darken, and all he could see was the pain, flashes of red fire and ice. 

Eventually he had to stop, bracing himself with bloody hands, knuckles ripped and shredded to the white glinting bones. His aura wouldn’t be strong enough to heal him even at full force, it never had been. 

 

_____________

“How do you know these codes?” Ruby asked in awe as Blake inputed the digits and the upper door to the arena opened for them. Blake didn’t reply.  
“Duh, she knows all sorts of stuff, she was in a cult, remember? Breaking into places is her specialty.” Weiss told Ruby. Blake stopped and turned to reply, and Weiss put her hands up in a sign of innocence.

“Not as much of a specialty as your admirable drive to make the world a better place and your supreme fighting skills, of course.” She said nervously. Blake huffed and turned to keep walking, Nora and Yang skipping after her even though they were supposed to be being quite. 

“Nice save.” Ruby whispered to Wiess as she passed her. Jaune patted her on the shoulder, and Pyrrha gave her a thumbs up. 

They all tiptoed through the dark, in between the rows of benches on the upper observation level. They reached the end of the row, and all peered down at the arena, where they saw Cardin.

“What should we do?” Ruby asked. Pyrrha narrowed her eyes as she stared down at the leader of CRDL, in the exact place she’d fought their entire team. 

“Nothing. I think we need to see this. Besides, he never listens to us anyway, right?” Wiess said lowly.

__________

 

The cold air rose goosebumps on his skin as it brushed against his heaving, bloody back. 

He wondered if the blood has covered those stupid scars. Those stupid scars exposing him, a constant reminder that he was not only incomplete, that he was a disgusting weak creature. 

And he knew it wasn’t because he wasn’t a Faunus. He couldn’t hide behind the lie of racism anymore, it couldn’t hold out now. It was because he  
a Faunus. He wasn’t human either. 

He wasn’t an asshole. He wasn’t a good person. He wasn’t a liar. He never seemed to tell the truth. He wasn’t a good leader. Ozpin had chosen him to lead CRDL, and he had. Only out of fear. Because he was the strongest. 

He was the strongest. 

He was the weakest, most pathetic being on the planet. He rocked back on his knees, heaving in breath. He reached behind him, ignoring the pain, and dug his fingernails into his back, clawing through the slick blood at the space between his shoulderblades desperately, searching for his wings. Were where they? Why couldn’t he feel them? Why had they left him? Why had he been born at all? Why couldn’t he just be one thing? 

He could never be the human his father had wanted, why couldn’t he be a Faunus? Why did he have to be some crippled thing to be pitied once everyone saw his scars?

 

He could never be a good person. Why couldn’t he be the asshole everyone had seen and hated and feared? Why did he have to feel so horrible about the things he did on purpose? 

He couldn’t be a normal person, he had nothing else but his strength. Why did he have to be so physically weak? A shitty aura and no semblence to speak of. He’d never been able to find it, and he’d eventually come to realization he didn’t have one. He was too weak and torn apart inside to have a semblance.

A semblance was a reflection of your soul, and Cardin didn’t seem to have one. All he had was a tormented writhing storm instead, indecisive but stubborn in it’s ways. 

He felt the line of his twin scars, mirroring each other on either side of his spine. He felt another surge of pure anger and he dug his fingernails in his back as hard as he could, and ripped at them. The skin tore and gave way slowly, and he threw his head back and let out a strangled cry. He had no way of lying this time, it was one of pure pain and desolation.

He couldn’t keep going, it was too much. He let go of himself, and fell forward, collapsing onto his front, arms trying to brace against the cold floor. He bowed his head and let the fight drain out of him. 

“I’m nothing.” He whispered bitterly to himself, but it echoed nonetheless. Good thing he was alone.

He’d always been alone. 

_____________

The group was tense, everyone silent, shocked. Disturbed. Moved. All thinking different things, but all thinking the same. 

 

“I think you guys should go.” Jaune whispered to them, not taking his eyes off Cardin. “He can’t know you all saw this, it’ll just make things worse.”

“I’m not leaving you with him.” Weiss said, to everyone’s surprise. He blinked at her. 

“I’ll wait here for you, but I agree, everyone else should go. I think Jaune can handle this.”

“Handle what? He’s done nothing to deserve our empathy, just pity.” Ren said in a level tone. Pyrrha fixed him with a look, and he sighed and dragged Nora with him as everyone but Jaune and Pyrrha headed back towards the door and away. Pyrrha turned back to Jaune, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sometimes the greatest weapon is a heart capable of endless compassion. But don’t let it drag you down with him, okay? I’ll wait here if you need me.” She assured him. He smiled at her, then headed towards the staircase.

Pyrrha stood on the cusp of the shadows, watching as Jaune stepped into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> reposted bc I had to fix some italic issues
> 
> don't forget to check out the playlist on 8tracks <3
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
